[mobglob-discuss] CSU Vice president (Yves Engler) arrested for breaking moratorium

[Macdonald Stainsby]

To the RepGroup and all Vancouver students:
I beleive we should send our solidarity and endorsement of Yves Englers
reinstatement immediately.

An injury to one is an injury to all.
my apologies for sending out non FTAA/conference material to con2-plan.

Macdonald

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 14:32:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Keefer <tom at tao.ca>
Subject: CSU Vice president arrested for breaking moratorium


Student Charged with, um, Activism

Could cold, hard cash be the real reason behind Concordia university¹s
hard line on student activism?

by David Bernans
October 17, 2002

Concordia student activist Yves Engler was removed from the university¹s
downtown Montreal campus yesterday by police and charged with trespassing.
Police were ready for trouble as riot squads waited nearby in the nineteen
police vehicles sent to escort Engler from campus.

An elected student representative, Engler has been informed that he is no
longer allowed to set foot on Concordia property.

What did Engler do? As vice-president of communications for Concordia¹s
Student Union, he was, well, doing his job. During the day yesterday,
Engler distributed literature on campus about an Americas-wide anti-FTAA
protest that will be taking place this Halloween as the hemisphere¹s
leaders meet for the latest round of free-trade negotiations.

Engler¹s actions violate a ban on free speech imposed by university rector
Frederick Lowy in the wake of confrontations between police and protesters
that forced the cancellation of former Israeli prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu¹s public address in September.

Although the aspect of the ban that has attracted the most attention has
been the complete moratorium on all Middle-East-related speech, it has
also meant the complete prohibition of the distribution of any kind of
information in the busiest corridors on campus.

Engler¹s goal was to inform and persuade students of the dangers posed by
corporate globalization to public education. Ironically, the show of force
by the university administration was a concrete example of how corporate
power can silence debate.

* * *

What at first appeared to be an example of tension between Concordia
student groups on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has now
taken on the character of a debate over the privatization of education. On
one side stand university rector Frederick Lowy, Concordia¹s corporate
partners and the school¹s Board of Governors. On the other, the Concordia
Student Union, the University Senate and faculty.

In a recent landmark decision, the University Senate called on the Board
of Governors to lift the indefinite ban in effect on campus. The October 4
Senate decision is in direct opposition to the September 18 resolution
made by the university¹s Board of Governors. You see, the majority of
Board of Governors seats are reserved for the ³community at large,² but
almost all these community members come from Montreal¹s business
community. Most Senate seats are filled by elected Concordia faculty and
students.

Although the Senate is the highest academic decision-making body in the
university, it cannot repeal the decision of the governing board because
the latter has the ultimate authority on university management.

On October 16, the morning before Engler¹s arrest, the Board of Governors
decided to ignore the advice of students and faculty. Extra-curricular
discussions of the Middle-East and information distribution in the central
Hall Building lobby would still be prohibited, while the rector would
retain his power to summarily expel students who violate the extraordinary
rules.

* * *

The battle of wills now pitting Concordia¹s corporate partners against
teachers and students is a sign of the times. According to the most recent
Statistics Canada data, almost twenty per cent of funding to Canadian
universities now comes from private donations and the sale of services. If
those corporate partners¹ faith is shaken, a university has a lot to
loose.

Money talks, and so it seems, at Concordia, students can¹t.

It breaks down like this: When Rector Lowy declared the campus-wide ban,
he explained the decision was motivated by concern for campus safety in
the wake of the September confrontation between police and protesters.
Under public scrutiny, however, another rationale for the ban has emerged.
There may be a more basic, more vulgar and more believable motive for the
university¹s drastic actions: cold, hard cash.

Concordia administrators have denied that any external forces have
influenced the university¹s decision-making process. But Marcel Dupuis,
the university¹s director of corporate and foundation giving, conceded in
the Montreal Gazette that ³[d]onors and alumni are saying, OIf you don¹t
get things in order, we¹re pulling the funding.¹²

Two years of sustained activism for Palestinian human rights have taken
their toll on corporate confidence in Concordia¹s profitability. Last
year, students voted in a university-wide referendum to support U.N.
condemnations of the state of Israel¹s occupation of Palestinian lands;
the student union produced a controversial agenda that criticized Israel,
Colombia and other U.S. allies; students have criticized Concordia¹s
corporate partner Pratt & Whitney for supplying F16 engines to the Israeli
military; and there have been more large-scale demonstrations against
Israeli aggression than most other universities have had on any issue.

The Netanyahu demonstration was only the last straw. Time to ³get things
in order.²

While corporations have been putting pressure on Concordia¹s pocket book,
other off-campus forces have been tugging at the university¹s
heartstrings. Rector Lowy has received hundreds of e-mails from around the
world urging him not to abandon a core value of public education < the
tradition of free expression < including an official complaint from the
Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada.

Ironically enough, though perhaps not surprisingly, the decision to ban
public discussion on the Middle East has made it the only thing that
people at Concordia now talk about. Or, at least, it was the only thing
people were talking about until Engler was charged.

The student union has been planning for several months to take part in the
anti-FTAA action on October 31, but campus activists have been occupied by
the internal dispute over freedom of speech on campus. Engler¹s civil
disobedience represents an attempt to bridge the gap between the two
issues.

³Arresting me for exercising my right to free speech would look really bad
on the university administration,² Engler told me just hours before his
arrest.That afternoon, police had visited the activist as he sat at his
information kiosk with dozens of students and a CBC camera operator
looking on. No action was taken at the time.

Although Engler was happy to be a free man, he noted that, had the forces
of order pushed their hand, ³it would create great publicity for our fight
against the FTAA and for public education.²

After Engler packed up his kiosk, and after the 6 o¹clock news, the forces
of order pushed their hand. Police entered the student union offices to
remove the vice-president from his place of work.

Although silencing debate may be good for attracting private funding,
student union president Sabine Friesinger observes that it has had a
³negative impact on all student life.² Many students are worried about
being disciplined under strict new rules. Friesinger hopes that the
scramble to placate private donors will ultimately backfire on the
administration, pushing students to mobilize against the FTAA and in
favour of publicly funded education. ³If we had more public funds,² she
says, ³we could have all the debates we wanted.²

Debates, on any issue, at a university? What a revolutionary idea.


David Bernans is the researcher/archivist of the Concordia Student Union
and a former faculty member in Concordia¹s political science department.
He is also the author of Con U Inc.: Privatization, Marketization and
Globalization at Concordia University (and beyond).



-------------------------------------------
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
--
In the contradiction lies the hope.
                                     --Bertholt Brecht